Source: 2017 Q4 Beartracks, Jared Yates

This year the Texas STOL Roundup moved to the little town of Hondo Texas, just outside San Antonio. Mark Goldberg set up a booth to advertise the Bearhawk kits, and allowed me to borrow his 4-Place Bearhawk for the STOL competition. The turnout this year was greatly reduced due to unfortunate weather conditions, and probably in part due to the change in venue. The organizers divide the competition into five different classes based on the aircraft type, including LSA, Bush, Light Touring, Heavy Touring, and Super Heavy Touring. Those classes are further divided between Experimental and Type Certificated, for a total of 10 classes.

The Bush class was the best represented, with some of the competitors lined up in the photo above.
The 4-Place Bearhawk falls in the Heavy Touring class, and this year there where not any other Heavy Touring Experimental airplanes competing.

Now I can say my flying is “in a class of its own.” Unfortunately this means that this year the Bearhawk didn’t “win”, because the organizers don’t consider it a win if only one airplane flies in the class. But it was a fun time to compete, and being used to my own 185 HP blue Bearhawk, it was quite a treat to fly Mark’s beastly 540-powered machine with its Trailblazer prop and Model B wings and tail.

Each day began with a safety briefing, as shown above. I had no hopes of blending in as a local, being that I did not have a proper Texas hat.
There were two days of flying contests. On the first day, scoring was based on distance from the start line to where the airplane lifted off (takeoffs) and where it came to a stop (landings). This scoring method incentivized heavy braking, and unfortunately on the first day, one of the little guys ended up on his nose. The Bearhawk has the advantage of relatively forward main landing gear wheels, allowing for more aggressive braking than usual.
The second day was based on landing over an obstacle, which was simulated with two large inflatable pylons.
So how did it go? Each event includes two takeoffs and two landings. The four takeoffs measured 243.6, 324.3, 249, and 205.8 feet. In the traditional landings one measured 483.9 and the other was a DQ (landed short). The obstacle landings measured 893.7 and 957. This is based on a pilot with half a dozen landings in the airframe, so a more experienced operator could have certainly done better. I was flying in the same heat with the TC airplanes, and this year it seems the guys to beat were Paul Brown in his C-180 and John Sessions in his Helio Courier. In the first event, those two scored better than me in both of their patterns, with the other 5 competitors scoring worse. In the obstacle event combined score, Paul and John each had one landing that was better than my best, but the scores were much closer. We saw pilots employ several different strategies for maximizing performance. All of my takeoffs were based on two notches of flaps, and the landings with four notches of flaps. Partly because of the beastly horsepower and partly because it wasn’t my airplane, the takeoffs were made with neutral elevator, lifting off from nearly a three-point attitude. Some pilots get fancy with lifting the tail before brake release, or popping the flaps once reaching flying speed, but with the left-hand throttle, these techniques seemed more likely to get me in the bushes than into the winner’s circle. And besides, what’s the point in taking extra risk when there’s not a direct competitor? Mark’s airplane has so much static thrust that it was ready to fly before I would have had time to do much fancy pilot stuff anyway. My landings were from stabilized descents, as opposed to the “fly low, then chop and plop” technique, which was also popular. To truly be competitive, it would have been best to practice much more, including tests of various techniques and configurations.
The primary fun of the event was sitting around talking with the Bearhawk folks who came around, including Patrol builders Bob Maddox, Jim Parker, and Craig Hatch.

4-Place builder Phil Vaneau stopped by, along with several interested prospects. Mark’s friends Mike and Peggy Reeser brought Mark’s LSA to the show, and they were delightful to visit with. STOL Celebrity Bob Breeden stopped by to talk about Bob’s designs, especially the Riblett airfoil.

We went for a short flight in Mark’s airplane and he seemed impressed especially with the low-speed and stall characteristics.
Airframes Alaska had a booth set up with some of their wares.

Bob Maddox brought his Patrol, which was one of the earlier scratch-build Patrols completed. Below are photos of Bob’s airplane, including details of how he incorporated seats from a Mooney, and how he relocated the baggage door higher in the fuselage for better ergonomics.
The back seat does not span across the fuselage like on most Patrols, but it does slide forward and recline back far enough to facilitate passenger sleeping.

The higher door: